Memories of us
by C.Watherston
Summary: Life gives us brief moments with another...but sometimes in those brief moment we get memories that last a life time...  A few stories about the epic romances aboard Firefly-Class Serenity.
1. Chapter 1

Her capable fingers slid across the complicated dials, knobs, switches, lights and buttons, making sense of the chaos, guiding them effortlessly through the black. Her hair was tied back with a ribbon and a few wild strands curled around her face, framing the concentrating frown. She paused then, looked up and swivelled to face him.

He stood in the doorway, brawny arms crossed, and his grey-blue eyes drilling into hers with a heavy frown knitting his dark browns. He was naked of weapons, and his wet, black hair was plastered to his face in some places, sticking up haphazardly in others, telling her he'd just gotten out of the shower. There was also the smell of cheap soap and the slightly stale water, and that hint of hot gunpowder and steel that was all his own.

For a long moment, they just watched each other, neither speaking, neither saying a word. Slate blue eyes bored into chocolate brown, and drunk in the sight of the other. He didn't ask what he wanted to ask, because he couldn't. It wasn't within his wide and varied capabilities yet to show her. It would be breaking a lifetime of habit, to ask her if she was okay now. Maybe that was why they worked so well; because he didn't have to. He transmitted the thought, the worry, the confusion, the fear, so clearly, that she never had to ask. He was broadcasting now, loud and clear.

_Are you alright Crazy_?

She smiled sadly at him.

"Removal of her amygdala ensures she will never be able to accurately process and suppress emotional data" she whispered, spinning back to face the Black.

"Chemically enhanced extrasensory perceptions, genetic athleticism was an additional benefit in the experimental psychological treatments...insanity and a killer" she finished bluntly, doing something at the Cortex.

For a big man, Jayne moved silently. He reached over her and put his hands over hers, pulling her gently away from the co-pilots seat. Still unspeaking, he held her against his chest and she listened to his steady heartbeat. He didn't know what she'd said, but he suppressed a burst of hatred for the Academy doctors. He knew hatred like his could trigger another breakdown. Instead, she felt him turn his focus to the things that made her strong; furious, sweaty sparring sessions in the cargo bay, mirrored by equally furious dances to memorised quartets and symphonies only she could hear, games with Kaylee, fresh fruit, the feel of _Serenity _responding to her precise movements. Tentatively, another thought came; his projection of himself. Tired, grumpy, scarred; too old, too uncivilised, his soul not pure enough and his past not clean enough. He wasn't good enough for a Core girl like her. Did he make her strong?

She looked up at him, and he was looking back down at her, carefully, heart beating fast, but he tried not to show it.

"He makes the monsters far away. Stable base, little tree can grow out of ledge in a cliff" she said, smiling reassuringly.

He crooked his eyebrow at her. She giggled. He liked it when she laughed like that, totally sane, totally her. Her eyes melted at his thoughts and tentatively she traced the stone-strong line of his jaw.

"Say it out loud, Jayne. Please" she begged.

She saw him hesitate, felt him struggle. She _needed_ to hear him say these words. He steeled himself, looked deep into her dark eyes and felt the steel melt. He cleared his throat.

"I'm glad yer right, Crazy, coz I dunno what I'd do without ya"- he moistened his lips and she pressed herself closer to him, encouraging without words. With the heady scent of her hair, he felt his blood rush south, but forced himself to concentrate.

"Ya keep me alive an' ya keep me honest as we're ever gunna get, being thieves an' all. Ya drive me _fong luh _in a million diff'ent ways, but girl...if you wasn't around..." he trailed off, the possibility too much for him to voice aloud.

They kissed. He held her tiny little body flush against him and felt her fire, felt every inch of power and soft woman. When they drew apart, her cheeks were flushed, her lips reddened from his stubble. Standing on her tip toes, she began to kiss a burning line across his jaw, down his neck, and gently bit the skin at the base of his throat, smiling at the deep rumble from his chest.

"How's 'bout ye stick this bird on auto an' come on down ta ma bunk, Crazy?" he murmured, voice rasping and husky. She drew back, whirling out of his arms. He felt the loss like a limb.

"You haven't said the words" she said.

He shook at the prospect.

"Say it outloud, Jayne" she insisted.

"Ye already know it anyhow" he complained.

"Its not the same. Make it audible, like an official mark. Make it _real_" her last words turned almost pleading. When Jayne stepped towards her, she stepped away.

He struggled again, but only for a split second.

"Gorrammit River-girl. I love ya. Always will, for so long as ye'll have me"

A brilliant, blinding, achingly beautiful smile burst across her face and she leaped into his arms, pressing her mouth desperately to his, her legs wrapped easily around his waist, arms tight around his neck. The force pushed him back into the wall of the bridge as they devoured each other hungrily. Gasping, Jayne drew back.

"Oh, juh jen sh guh kwai luh duh jean jan! We gotta get me to a bunk, girl-"he paused to taste those delicious, swollen lips again.

"-Coz if the Cap'n-" and again, longer this time, stealing his breath and soul, and him not minding a bit.

"-Catches us-" Goddamn her delectable, soft, branding lips! "-I'ma gunna get-"

Oh _wuh de ma, _the things she could do to him, wrapped around his waist like that, her long, talented fingers all tangled in her hair. If he didn't know better, he'd say she was doing it on purpose.

"-Spaced!" he managed to gasp out. He flicked the tip of his tongue along the curve of her ear and felt her heated shiver go through her, vibrating though to some very sensitive and alert parts of his anatomy.

"There's fire burning in her, flames and coals and embers, all alive" she managed to say, panting, her neat breasts heaving. His fingers shaking like he'd never felt before, he played with a flyaway strand of hair curling around the edge of her face.

"Ye keep burnin' girl, coz I'm right there with ya"

She put her feet down on the floor and pushed a chaste kiss to his lips, like the brief caress of a match against his skin.

"She loves you, Jayne, now and forever"


	2. Even Angel's Fall

_You found hope, you found faith.  
Found how fast she could take it away.  
Found true love, but lost your heart.  
Now you don't know who you are. _

He watched Inara walk away, felt the hand around his heart tug with her, and as she disappeared from view, rip it out. He'd been about to tell her, tell her that if she ever walked away she was taking his heart with her, but he'd been too late. She'd taken it like a wild horse takes the bit and gone for the horizon.

Frozen to the spot, he couldn't even run after her. His jaw locked; instinct. Natural reaction to the realisation that pain was about to flog him like a lazy horse with a bad master. It was the same as a looking at an enemy soldier and hearing the click of the trigger getting pulled; frozen, unmoving, steeling himself for the agony to come.

_She made it easy, made it free.  
Made you hurt till you couldn't see.  
Sometimes it stops, sometimes it flows.  
But baby, that is how love goes.  
_

Arguing with Inara, talking things over with her, seeing it from her rational point of view could drive him nuts, but it helped sometimes. She had a scheming streak to her. Proved that more than once. He'd explain his plan to her, she'd less than diplomatically point out the flaws in a plan, and if he didn't listen to her, later he'd without a doubt be sitting somewhere under fire, or dealing with a disgruntled client, and wishing to hell and gone that he had.  
Gorrammit, it wasn't the easiest relationship he'd ever had, but it had sure as hell been the most educational. Inara was everything he wasn't, everything he'd fought against, but she was still there; talking to Zoe, joking with Wash, plaiting Kaylee's hair, comforting Simon, calming River, prodding Jayne into semi-civilised behaviour and shooting him those looks that enflamed him from his head to his toes.

When she was gone, he felt it. Felt it in the missing place at the dinner table. Felt it in the smell of incense and exotic perfume lingering like her memories in the corridors. Felt it in the way she would read his black moods and pin those rages with a set of onyx eyes; make them far away. When she was gone, gorrammit, he hurt.

_You will fly and you will crawl.  
God knows even angels fall.  
No such thing as you've lost it all.  
God knows even angels fall.  
_  
She was just so gorram out of place here! Some dark-haired, ebony-eyed beacon of civilisation and culture way out here in the Black. Never a blemish, never a spot of dirt to betray her mortality. Even when they were miles from anywhere, just a spot in the stars, she was a slender, bedecked reed of tinkling silver bracelets and the crisp click of slippers. All she needed was wings; and sometimes, watching her take off in the shuttle when they landed, he felt like she had them. In the back of his mind, he held onto that; because it was almost as if he, Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds, had given this angel her wings.

Yet, despite it, there was something like steel inside her. Maybe not steel; it was too rough, too shining. Instead, Mal seemed to think more of a diamond; strong and beautiful, the most precious of gems.

There was something darker, too. Something he recognised, glimmering dully under the surface -veil of pretties. It wasn't till later that he saw it clearly.

_It's a secret, that no one tells  
One day it's heaven one day it's hell.  
And it's no fairy tale, take it from me.  
That's the way it's supposed to be. _

Miranda; the secret that drove River Tam to madness. That look in Inara's eyes when he came out alive had almost made it worth it. He wished to Hell he'd had the guts to kiss her that day and dammit, he wished he coulda seen her in action with that bow.

It was the deep-rooted ability to survive that he'd seen in her, recognised in her. If someone tried to kill her, she tried to kill them right back. Simple.

_You laugh, you cry, no one knows why_

_But oh, the thrill of it all.  
You're on the ride  
You might as well, open your eyes. _

Those first few months were a damn struggle, keeping it together for his crew while they poured everything they had left into the rebuilding of their home; _Serenity_. Maybe that was why they couldn't leave, even as they left the memories of Miranda behind and Simon and Kaylee got married and Zoe announced the imminent arrival of Little Wash. In those months of recovery, every nut and bolt and molten weld was a piece of them that they put back in, holding _Serenity _together. Their sweat, blood and cusses were the glue and their fears, nightmares, hopes and dreams were the missing pieces they replaced.

There had been times he'd stop, shot by some memory, and be caught between laughing and crying and just standing there and howling like a shot wolf. There was the uneasy truce, this waving of the white flag, with Inara. They couldn't think about it; there was too much, too suddenly. He'd been expecting her to leave, and he'd put on a bravado just so it wouldn't hurt. So when she'd paused and for the first time in the year he'd known her, shown herself uncertain, he couldn't help the dance his heart had thrown itself into. Still, it was too soon. The emotion was still raw. So he'd smiled. The promise was there; this wasn't the last they'd hear of this. Neither of them were walking away this time.

"Good answer" he'd said, and entering the bridge.

They were here, and that was the main thing. They weren't all together, and some of them weren't exactly whole; but they were alive. And that was a good place to start.

So when they took their first job since Miranda, and they'd all gotten back alive, he'd laughed at her joke. Then he'd let her put her hand gently over the stitches Simon had just closed in the hole in his arm. Then he'd met her eyes and kissed her.

That first time, he'd kissed her with his eyes open.


	3. Not at first sight

It wasn't love at first sight.

It was a million moments that slowly turned into not wanting to kill each other. From there, it changed into not wanting to see the other get hurt. Then, before either of them realised it was happening, they were in love. Totally, completely and utterly.

For her, he presented a challenge. A threat at first, that was suddenly no longer. At least not to her physically. However, he made her feel a blurring headache of emotions that was enough to throw her fragile sanity completely out of balance. Despite it, she found she didn't mind. When she stopped trying to analyse every passing feeling, and simply let herself _feel _it, Jayne was easier to be around.

For him, well...she was something. Dangerous, for sure. Lethal. Beautiful in her own way. Precious; it took him a while to understand that. She was of course, a crew mate and therefore he owed her his loyalty. After Miranda, he owed her his life as well; he wasn't too proud to admit that. She was the Captain's Albatross, she was the doc's little _meimei_. But that weren't what made her precious to him.

They'd formed an uneasy truce when she started running regular jobs with them. It hadn't been immediate. As much as Jayne could see the advantages of having a Reader on board, he didn't like the idea of anybody hearing what he was thinking. She'd had a sane day once, and taught him how to block thoughts from her, if he wanted to. That relaxed him a mite.

Once, on a job, he'd been getting a bit twitchy. The meet smelled wrong; even Mal could sense it. They were all on high alert anyhow. This was their first job without Zoe, her being pregnant and all. There were too many doors and hidden places for guns to come leaping out of. It was driving Jayne mad. How the hell was he meant to keep a bullet out of the Captain's hide if he didn't know where aforementioned slug was coming from? He'd been trying to keep an eye on the door behind him, one he couldn't cover, when Crazy dropped back to stand in front of it, hand on the hunting knife Mal had got her. She'd met Jayne's eyes and nodded. He'd turned back to the meet, feeling a damn sight more relaxed. She may have been crazy, but she was damn good at her job. He didn't even mind that she'd read his mind. Without speaking, they'd just showed the client they were onto his games and they weren't to be messed with. They'd walked away, full payment in hand and, sadly, without a single trigger being pulled.

She got shot for the first time, shoving Mal out of the way before he copped it in the head. Jayne had felt it like he'd been shot himself; except she'd been shot in the arm, and he felt it in his chest and guts. It was the first time he'd agreed with Simon on anything. They'd both wanted to deck Mal. Lucky she'd come to alright, or Simon might have.

In their own strange ways, they did balance each other out. Didn't mean they didn't clash. They clashed in spectacular displays down in the cargo hold; no-holds-barred, furious, no-pulled-punches spars. Strength versus speed, her raw talent pitted against his hard years experience. It was instinct against intuition. The first time it had happened, Mal had fired three shots to try and get them to stop, thinking they were going to kill each other. Jayne had stormed off, her laughter ringing in his ears. That night, at dinner, she'd leaned close to him and told him confidently that he'd be back.

He was.

That second time wasn't like the first. The first was raw, unbridled rage; "If you ain't careful, Crazy, one of these days, Imma gunna take you up on that offer an' you're gunna be in a whole 'Verse o' _go sei_!"

The second time, they'd tested each other, systemtically pushing each others boundaries.

In some ways, they still were.


	4. Flashback

**FLASHBACK**

"**You don't think it's a **_**little **_**dangerous? We've got pregnant women and a child on board, Captain. You need to start thinking about that!" **

**Mal snorted, darting out of the corner Simon had backed him into, and headed down the hallway at a strut. **

"**Kaylee ain't due for donkey's years, doc. Quit your fussin'. 'Sides, her n' little Wash ain't gunna be nowhere near their action, if there's even gunna be any action to be had, which I doubt" **

**Simon folded his arms, eyes narrowed. **

"**Captain. It is **_**your **_**plan, correct?" **

"**Well whose gorram plan do you think it would be?" **

**Mal stopped and faced him, waving his hands erratically to make his point. **

"**Oh I don't know. I am not even sure I want to know. Speaking strictly from experience, any plan of yours will surely involve gunplay!"**

**Mal snorted and swung to check out the cargo bay, make sure Zoe was prepping the mule for flight. **

"**It is **_**your **_**plan, and you wonder why I am concerned with the safety of my wife!" snapped the doctor. The captain sighed heavily. He could feel a migrane coming on. **

"**Doc, I thought Kaylee was meant to be the one all hormonal and sensitive, not **_**you**_**!" **

**Simon glared. Mal glared back. River landed a **_**grand jeté **_**in their midst, oblivious to the tension. **

"**The teddy bears must be off to the picnic! Old Mother Goose will be very upset if they are late!" she said, looking at Mal. **

**She twirled away, long red dress flying. Mal had brought her a hunting knife for jobs, and she wore it on a wide black belt over the red dress, matching her big combat boots. Inara must have brushed her hair, because it fluttered in delicate, wispy strands down her pale, smooth shoulders. **

**Mal pinched the bridge of his nose. **

"**Why is she always talking crazy-talk when we're about to go out on a heist?" he exclaimed, to nobody in particular. Simon wrinkled his nose. **

"**The stress is too much for her. She should-" **

"**Aw quit babyin' her, doc. Girl knows what she's doing" **

**Jayne came clumping down the stairs, hefting a bandolier thoughtfully. **

"**Ape-Man's risk of sustaining injury is considerably less when the girl is in attendance" River volunteered cheerfully from beneath them. Jayne actually looked wounded. **

"**Hey! Whadidi tell ya 'bout callin' me that?" he shouted. **

"**That you would kick my arse so hard I'll be 'tasting my own shit'. However, she's interested in the outcome of such an enterprise, so you're welcome to try" she called back. **

**The big merc was still hurling abuse at her as he descended the stairs. Mal watched him go, amused. **

"**I think what they're trying to tell ya there doc, is that you can't have one of the gun hands without the other one" he said dryly. **

**Simon sighed. **

"**I suppose you are right" **

"**Course I am. Always am. Now that that's settled-" he turned aside and leaned on the catwalk rails; "-Alrighty! Let's pack and get going! We gots rich folks to rob!" he hollered down at them. **

**Zoe cursed and glared at him so fiercely he physically recoiled. From deeper in the bowls of the ship, a baby wailed. Below him, his right-hand cursed. **

"**Dammit Mal! I only just got him down to!" **

**Simon shook his head disapprovingly at Mal, who already looked suitable chastened. **

"**Kay and I will look after him, Zoe" he called. She nodded. **

"**Thanks Simon. There's milk in the fridge" **

**He nodded and turned. As Mal began to make his way down to the cargo hold, he paused and looked back. **

"**Mal?" **

**The captain turned. Simon didn't call him by his name very often. There was a haunted shadow in Simon's blue eyes as they met with his, equally as blue. **

"**It...it's not easy, Mal. I...I know you'll look after her, and I know you would die before letting anything hurt Kay, but..." he trailed off, unable to make the words come out right. Luckily, he didn't have to. Mal nodded. **

"**I'll keep her safe, doc. You best be attending to that godson o' mine. He's a fine set of lungs on him" **

**There. Simon's shoulder relaxed and he flashed his usual dry smile. **

"**Yes well, I suppose he must have some resemblance to his godfather; noisy, impolite-" **

**Mal was heading down the stairs. Simon smiled, a real smile this time, and headed into the galley. **

PRESENT DAY

"Simon, I am I 'sposed to sleep with you tossin' and turnin' like your fightin' bears?" grumbled Kaylee beside him, but it was mocking. There wasn't even a hint of real irritation in her voice. He turned on his side to look at her.

Kaylee was curled up, naked as the day she was born, wrapped in covers on their bed under the ladder into the engine room. He sighed and tucked a wild strand of brown hair away. She was beautiful. Not beautiful like the women back in the Core, she had her own special brand of beauty. Kaylee was a warm bundle of earthy sun, smeared with engine oil and grease, with burns and bruises from hanging inside the engine all day. She was _Serenity_'s own personal, carry-on ray of summer sunshine. He wished he could tell her without messing it up.

She smiled.

"You know, you're lucky you've got the purtiest pair of eyes there ever was in the 'Verse, coz otherwise I'd never know you loved me"

She saw Simon's eyes harden and her heart stopped, wondering what she'd done wrong. Then he caught her arm and hauled her against him, slamming his lips to hers and not letting go. _Wo de ma _Simon Tam may have been a whole lot of things, but a bad kisser was sure as hell not one of them! She was gasping by the time he drew away.

"Oh, and that. That too, definitely...mm..."

She sighed and gazed into his eyes again.

"Doctor Simon Tam, it ain't fair when you go and do that"

He smirked.

"What's that?"

"You go gettin' me all caught up an' I completely forget why I was mad at you for!"

He laughed and pinned her to the bed, kissing her slowly this time, trying to push every milligram of his love and devotion through the gesture. She drew away and pressed kisses to his jaw and the frantic pulse in his neck. He shivered when her hands dropped to touch him. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pushed his grey boxer shorts down. He was left naked and temporarily speechless.


	5. All in tonight

All night staring at the ceiling

Counting for minutes I've been feeling this way

So far away and so alone

But you know it's alright

I came to my senses

Letting go of my defences

There's no way I'm giving up this time

Yeah, you know I'm right here

I'm not losing you this time

**Simon finished the stitch in Jayne's temple slightly harder than need be, yanking it to snap the slender thread. The big man grunted, but with slumped shoulders accepted it. He deserved it and he knew it. **

**Turning to clean his instruments, Simon washed his hands and heaved a heavy sigh. Then he turned back to Jayne, taking in the mercenary's hang dog appearance, the defeat in his dull eyes, before speaking softly. **

"**You could have lost her this time, Jayne" **

**The big man nodded silently. **

"**I know, doc...but I ain't...I can't...not again"-he looked up and met Simon's eyes with stubborn determination. **

"**I damn near lost her when I barely had her, 'fore. Now...now she's mine, doc, and I ain't giving her up easy. Can you understand me? I gotta try" **

**For a long time, the doctor stood and looked at the other man, reading him with folded arms. Then, finally, he sighed. **

"**I have a sneaking suspicion you'll be in here again soon. And not because you were hit with a bottle by a drunk" **

And I'm all in, nothing left to hide

I'm falling harder than a landslide

I spend a week away from you last night

And now I'm calling, calling out your name

Even if I lose the game, I'm all in

I'm all in tonight, yeah I'm all in, I'm all in for life

"**Riv?"**

**She was standing with her back to him folding laundry. The last time she'd been on laundry, she'd got it in her mind to sort them by colours rather than by owners. When Mal ended up with a pair of Kaylee's lacy red briefs with his shirts, he'd put his foot down in a spectacular tantrum and banned her from the laundry. Apparently, the bright-eyed Reader had talked her way back into the chore again. **

**Hearing Jayne's voice, she turned her upper body and regarded him coolly. **

"**Jayne" she greeted loftily. A pain like a hot knife twisting in his guts tore through the merc and he wished for a moment he could hate her again like her used to. **

"**Riv, listen, I...you...nah, ye see...ah...I gotta, I feel like I gotta, well nah, I...gorrammit! Look, River, I gotta 'pologise for last night. Way I acted was way outta line, an' you didn't deserve that none" **

**She swapped a couple of articles of clothing. **

"**Apology suggest guilt, and there is no guilt and therefore the apology is not necessary" **

**He looked stunned for a moment. **

"**Ah..alri't...an' thats it? We're orright, you an' me?" **

**She turned fully with an armload of clothing. **

"**The partnership is stable" **

**Jayne blinked as she swirled passed him in a puff of scent like meadow grass in the morning. **

"**What about us, Riv, the, ye know, me an' you bit?" **

**She swung on him, her anger so palpable he took a step back, wary of her flying hands and feet that had taught him to eat his words more than once before. **

"**I was not aware there was a relationship other than a professional partnership in which we do what is within our abilities to stop the Captain or crew ending proceedings with a projectile under their skin!" **

There's no taking back what we've got

Too strong, we've had each other's back for too long

There's no breaking up this time

And you know it's okay, I came to my senses

Letting go of my defences

There's no way I'm giving up this time

"**That ain't true, Riv, an' ya know it. **_**Ya know it**_**. What we got, we got sommat. We bled for each other, Riv" **

And I'm all in, nothing left to hide

I'm falling harder than a landslide

I spend a week away from you last night

And now I'm calling, calling out your name

Even if I lose the game, I'm all in

I'm all in tonight, yeah I'm all in, I'm all in for life

"**The river's blood has run for all on **_**Serenity**_**" she scowled. Jayne's arms were trembling with emotion, but he could tell from the blank look on her face she was blocking him out. He didn't blame her; emotion was coursing through him in a million different directions, hot and fast and explosively cold. The only one piece of flying emotional debris he could latch onto in that moment was the truth in his words. Everything else he allowed to drag for another, less volatile time. **

"**Not like 'tween you an' me. Marry me, River Tam. Marry me" **

**Her jaw dropped. He felt a split second of satisfaction that he could still manage to surprise her. Then her face closed again, her eyes cold. **

"**You don't mean that" **

**Now it was his turn to scrape his jawbone on the floor. **

"**The hell I don't! I nev'r meant nothin' more in my whole damn life!" **

**She was still watching him warily. **

"**To have and to hold? Till death do us part? To be tied to her? The broken Alliance toy? To wed and have children is a forever agreement. Contract. Blood. Family. You will submit?" **

**A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Damn gal knew just what to say to make him wonder what in the hell he was thinking. Tied down? Kids? As if words like 'forever' and 'submit' didn't give him the willies enough as it were, now she was throwing them in his face with those memories of her laugh and her smile and her tiny hand in his...**

I want it, I want it, I want it

I want it, I want it, I want it, yeah

I want it, I want it, I want it, yeah

And I'm all in, calling out your name

Even if I lose the game, I'm all in, I'm all in for life

And I'm all in, nothing left to hide

I'm falling harder than a landslide

I spend a week away from you last night

And now I'm calling, calling out your name

Even if I lose the game, I'm all in

I'm all in tonight, yeah I'm all in, I'm all in for life

Yeah I'm all in, I'm all in for life

"**I'm in, River-Girl. Forever an' for life" **

"**You promise?" **

"**I gorram swear it! Now 'kin I kiss ya without gettin' hit?" **


	6. The hard way

_You've got your own way of looking at it baby  
I guess that proves that I got mine_

A soldier does not survive by taking the easy way out. There is no easy way of holding a blood-soaked patch of ground and protecting those men and women who looked up to you with eyes full of fear and respect and expectation. He made sacrifices, he let people die, he questioned his faith. His word was law. Carved in stone from the moment it left his mouth. This was the only way he knew to keep his crew safe and this he would defend; his right to make the decisions.

But soldier's did not always wear torn, reeking, bloody brown coats.

Sometimes they wore silks and satin, stepping lightly in patent heels and smelling of incense and purity and spice. Sometimes they took the burdens of the world and lifted them from one pair of shoulders to another in a cloud of touch, sensation, clean softness and rose oil. Sometimes they cut the throat of a rapist and left him to die on white silk sheets. Sometimes in a gentle sleight of hand, a droplet of pure death rippled in a wine glass.

Some people who were untouchable did not deserve to live.

When a man with a badge abused that power, there was a shot in a pistol waiting for him somewhere.

When corruption ran unchecked because of a single link in a long chain, that link was cleansed.

She, Inara Serra, looked at the world as a facade; ugliness, evil, hatred and corruption covered in silks and the illusion of love in sex. Saw it and tried to extend the facade. Make it deeper. Take away the facade and leave behind the silks and scents.

He, Malcolm Reynolds, looked at the world as a cruel, hard place and if you couldn't keep up then you didn't step up and you stayed the hell out of his way. He had a ship to keep flying.

_Seems like our hearts are set on automatic  
We say the first thing that comes to mind_

Why was it so easy to seep into anger and cool unfeeling? Why was it so easy to ignore the blunt dagger that pierced her heart, whose poison spread through her system even as she wrinkled her nose in apparent distaste and raised her own knife to stab and draw blood.

There they were, engaged in a bloody dance. Stab, cut, whirl, duck, don't let him touch you, don't let her in, scratch at the open wounds, toss the salt uncaringly into the weeping lesions. It was automatic, it was instinctive.

Because who wants to let someone in? Who wants to let the pirate see the scared little girl behind the mask? Who wants to let the whore see the broken man behind the gun?

_It's just who we are baby, we've come too far to start over now  
I know what you're thinkin' ; I'm not always easy to be around_

The incorrigible Malcolm Reynolds. The arrogant, stubborn, spontaneous, reckless pirate soldier.

The beautiful Inara Serra. The quietly strong, chaste, passionate, sensual, intelligent concubine.

They had, anyone could admit, come a long way from the days pre-Miranda. Their walls were down. Oh, they were hesitant and scared to death of the consequences and broken in so many ways. They were slowly trying to heal; but Mal lashed out in much the same way as a dog with its foot caught in a trap. Sure, he was sorry and metaphorically whined and literally limped about looking very sorry for himself for days afterwards, but every time he snapped at Inara, she retreated and they were left, still chasing each other around the game board.

_But I do love you  
You keep me believin' that you love me too  
And I know it's true  
This love drives us crazy but nobody's walkin' away  
So, I guess we'll to do it the hard way_

So why did he make it so easy for her to love him? Why did he let her see him cry, and rage at the God he had almost found his faith in again with the gentle guidance of the now-dead Sheppard? He would hold Kaylee and joke with Simon and fly with River and drink with Zoe and slowly patch the gaping holes in their lives while completely ignoring the wounds in himself, plugged temporarily.

Was that why she stayed? To try and fix him? To remind him to heal himself? To be a silk handkerchief stemming the flow of blood from some terrible, cavernous puncture in his heart?

Maybe it wasn't much. But it was enough.

_If I had a genie in a bottle  
Three wishes I could wish for us  
I wish we'd live forever and get along together  
Turn these tempers into trust_

He'd raged at the God again when she told him, quietly, after weeks of being poked and prodded and watched worrily and questioned. She looked terrible, as though the life was slipping out of her.

Because it was.

He couldn't accept it. he couldn't stand it. she'd held onto him as hard as she could and tried desperately to give him something, anything, to hold onto as he edged closer to the abyss. The moment she was gone, the moment she ceased to exist, he would dive in after her.

So they laughed. They laughed and made love and ignored the constant clicking of the clock. They fought and made up and danced and got ridiculously drunk.

It was the hard way. But it was a way. _  
_


End file.
